X-Com Enemy Unknown - Late to the party Review
X-Com is a surprisingly fun strategy game for consoles and PC. In it players would lead a paramilitary group funded by the nations of the world, in a fight against alien invaders. Gameplay ranged from constructing a secret base, reverse engineering alien technology, launching satellites to reduce worldwide panic, shooting down invading UFO's, and fielding combat teams against the alien menace. Soldiers under the player's command would level up by killing aliens and surviving missions.
Combat in the game was a considerable exercise in strategy. The ability to flank enemies in cover provided ample incentive to move offensively, while also necessitating the use of overwatch from other units to cover your own advance. The addition of bonuses to elevated positions made the game feel much more open than a simple flat field. When flying units were later introduced, this became even more apparent. Being able to use a single sniper to lock down opposition was immensely satisfying in fights, and in fact was one of my favorite moments while playing the game.
Capturing live aliens and looting their technology were also key aspects of gameplay. Players would need to compare the costs and benefits of destroying enemy cover vs the potential value of whatever doodad they were hiding behind. Even enemy corpses could be used as currency or research material, but if players killed enemies with high explosives, then their corpses would be to destroyed to be of value. This created a limit on players, where high danger enemies couldn't be damaged by explosives for fear of losing their comparatively high value corpse. This was even more apparent when trying to capture live aliens for interrogation. Players would need to pull their punches and tank potentially multiple rounds of enemy fire, all for a chance of interrogating an alien for research boosts and tech unlocks. Unfortunately, the game designers did not include any way for players to differentiate between enemies they could capture, or only kill. This easily lead to situations where players would be misplaced near high powered enemies, and often resulted in the death of a soldier.
Fielding air defenses against discovered UFO's was also a major part of the game, if largely underdeveloped. By shooting down alien ships, players were able to loot several invaluable resources and discover many new and incredibly powerful technologies. Unfortunately, while models were made for player created interceptor craft, the anti UFO interface was incredibly lacking. Players would literally see a wireframe avatar of their ship slowly approach the encroaching alien vessel, while occasionally firing its weapon. The player would only be able to provide one time use buffs through researched items, but could not influence the battle in any other way. This was an irksome departure from the highly tactical battle's that were ground warfare, almost feeling like random chance events, instead of humanities last defense against hostile invaders. There were weapons available for the ships, but with the interface, they really only registered as stat boosts, they had no models viewable by the player.
The final gameplay mechanic was base construction. The X-Com projects location is deep within a mountain, similar to real world modern military bases. Players would be able to excavate new areas for facilities in the base, all while managing resources like satellite uplink capacity and power limitations. Later game elements also required buildings to be constructed to further humanities fight against the aliens. I particularly liked being able to zoom in on any single building and see in detail its insides. There was a surprising amount of detail put into something that nearly amounted to the waiting menu for most of the game. Irritatingly, the number of facilities that could be constructed where extremely limited in nature, with only a few unique ones thrown in to further the plot. This was extremely apparent when only two thirds of the base capacity had been used, while still containing multiples of every single building.
Overall I found X-Com to be a very entertaining and engaging game. Although many aspects of it were not handled ideally, the overall impression comes off as both well polished and extremely fun. However, the game does not have much replayability, in part because the designers did not allow players to continue their game after beating the main story. The games graphics have held up rather well, with the artstyle allowing the visuals to look intentional instead of dated. Overall I'd give the game an 8/10.
X-Com is a surprisingly fun strategy game for consoles and PC. In it players would lead a paramilitary group funded by the nations of the world, in a fight against alien invaders. Gameplay ranged from constructing a secret base, reverse engineering alien technology, launching satellites to reduce worldwide panic, shooting down invading UFO's, and fielding combat teams against the alien menace. Soldiers under the player's command would level up by killing aliens and surviving missions.
Combat in the game was a considerable exercise in strategy. The ability to flank enemies in cover provided ample incentive to move offensively, while also necessitating the use of overwatch from other units to cover your own advance. The addition of bonuses to elevated positions made the game feel much more open than a simple flat field. When flying units were later introduced, this became even more apparent. Being able to use a single sniper to lock down opposition was immensely satisfying in fights, and in fact was one of my favorite moments while playing the game.
Capturing live aliens and looting their technology were also key aspects of gameplay. Players would need to compare the costs and benefits of destroying enemy cover vs the potential value of whatever doodad they were hiding behind. Even enemy corpses could be used as currency or research material, but if players killed enemies with high explosives, then their corpses would be to destroyed to be of value. This created a limit on players, where high danger enemies couldn't be damaged by explosives for fear of losing their comparatively high value corpse. This was even more apparent when trying to capture live aliens for interrogation. Players would need to pull their punches and tank potentially multiple rounds of enemy fire, all for a chance of interrogating an alien for research boosts and tech unlocks. Unfortunately, the game designers did not include any way for players to differentiate between enemies they could capture, or only kill. This easily lead to situations where players would be misplaced near high powered enemies, and often resulted in the death of a soldier.
Fielding air defenses against discovered UFO's was also a major part of the game, if largely underdeveloped. By shooting down alien ships, players were able to loot several invaluable resources and discover many new and incredibly powerful technologies. Unfortunately, while models were made for player created interceptor craft, the anti UFO interface was incredibly lacking. Players would literally see a wireframe avatar of their ship slowly approach the encroaching alien vessel, while occasionally firing its weapon. The player would only be able to provide one time use buffs through researched items, but could not influence the battle in any other way. This was an irksome departure from the highly tactical battle's that were ground warfare, almost feeling like random chance events, instead of humanities last defense against hostile invaders. There were weapons available for the ships, but with the interface, they really only registered as stat boosts, they had no models viewable by the player.
The final gameplay mechanic was base construction. The X-Com projects location is deep within a mountain, similar to real world modern military bases. Players would be able to excavate new areas for facilities in the base, all while managing resources like satellite uplink capacity and power limitations. Later game elements also required buildings to be constructed to further humanities fight against the aliens. I particularly liked being able to zoom in on any single building and see in detail its insides. There was a surprising amount of detail put into something that nearly amounted to the waiting menu for most of the game. Irritatingly, the number of facilities that could be constructed where extremely limited in nature, with only a few unique ones thrown in to further the plot. This was extremely apparent when only two thirds of the base capacity had been used, while still containing multiples of every single building.
Overall I found X-Com to be a very entertaining and engaging game. Although many aspects of it were not handled ideally, the overall impression comes off as both well polished and extremely fun. However, the game does not have much replayability, in part because the designers did not allow players to continue their game after beating the main story. The games graphics have held up rather well, with the artstyle allowing the visuals to look intentional instead of dated. Overall I'd give the game an 8/10.
<br />
<br />
